Formal and Informal Assessment of Student Learning Name: David T. McArdle
I. Assignment Description/Requirements
See Project Page for assignment details.
II. Preparation / Development
1. Reflect on your current assessment practices. How have you been determining what students understand and what they are able to do?
Over the past 6 weeks I have slowly developed my assessment strategies and I have now settled into a routine. I assess students biweekly (approximately) with a quiz that will cover the material that they learned in class. These quizzes summarize the conceptual points that were covered in class as well as assess the problem solving skills that students should have refined in class. These quizzes would be considered formal assessments. They also give me the opportunity to reflect on my own teaching and determine what the students truly learned within the unit. In addition to this I have also informally assessed students by collecting their work on the warmup problems that I assign each day. Every day starts with warm up questions and the students use a sheet that I provide to them to write their response. We then go over the answer together as a class. Each week I collect the warmups to ensure that the students are following the instruction and to ensure that they are keeping up with the lesson. I use these informal assessments to gauge the understanding of the students and to determine if more in-class time is necessary on a particular concept. I also occasionally give students a graded homework assignment that I collect and look through. I grade them on effort but at the same time I look at the work to make sure that they understand that process. In my eyes the informal assessments are designed to ensure that the students are on the right track to be successful on the formal assessments and are participating and paying attention in class. The final assessment strategy that I implement within my classroom involves actively observing each and every student. I observe how often they participate in class, how they respond when directly asked questions, and how the interact with their peers. This allows me to determine why they may not be understanding the material and what things could be changed in order to benefit them.
Are there assignments you grade to provide formative feedback to students? - fogleman
With these assessment practices, I feel as though I am able to gauge the understanding of my students and determine how well they are progressing as intellectuals within my classroom. I can reflect on my teaching by analyzing these assessments and adjust my teaching strategies and techniques in order to better suite each of my students.
2.Describe the concept(s) that you are trying to assess in these assignments. Include a link to the appropriate GSE(s) on RIScienceTeachers. Be sure to include in your description your definition, examples of what it is, why students have difficulty with this concept, and why it is important that you teach this topic.
The assignments that I will discuss Include a quiz that I gave my Physics 1 (H) class as well as the warmup exercises that I collected from my Physics 1 (CP) students. The concepts that both of these assessments are covering revolve around forces, finding net force, discussing Newton's Laws, and using Newton's Laws. Forces are fundamental to the study of physics and allow scientists to analyze physical situations and predict the outcome.
Forces are considered to be (in the simplest form) a push or a pull on an object. Forces exist all around us in nature and we apply forces to our surroundings in our day to day lives. Students struggle understanding the origin of these forces and they are unable to correctly identify ALL forces acting on an object in a given situation. Many students forget about frictional forces and about the normal force (a force that a surface applies to an object (perpendicular to the surface) in order to counteract an objects weight). I kept these misconceptions in mind as I prepared my lessons for this particular unit.
Within the assessments that I created I am assessing my students on their conceptual understanding of the physical ideas as well as their problem solving skills and their ability to solve real-word problems related to forces.
Both assignments can be seen below and the GSE's that this assignment covers are outlined here:
PS3 (9-11) 8a: Students demonstrate an understanding of forces and motion by predicting and or graphing the path of an object in different reference planes and explain how and why (forces) it occurs. GSE1
PS3 (5-8) 8d: Students demonstrate an understanding of force by making and texting ??? predictions on how unbalanced forces acting on objects change speed or direction of motion, or both. GSE2Middle school GSE? - fogleman
3. (and 7) Describe an informal assessment that you selected, modified, or designed to address this concept. Summarize the instructions you gave your students and Include a link to the informal assessment here as well.
Each and every class period I start off with a warmup question that is related to the topics that the students are covering. When I started this routine I instructed my students to use a blank sheet of paper that they would designate as their "warmup" sheet. They needed to write the entire question on the top of the sheet and then solve the problem using the concepts that were covered in class. I instructed them to also show ALL of their work and draw an appropriate free body diagram for the physical situation. Recently I have actually designed a grid worksheet for the students to fill in each day. This has helped to organize their thoughts and keep their notes in order. A picture of the grid can be seen below and I have also included several student samples in the sections below. The idea of these warm-up problems is to check to see if the students understand the content of the lessons and to also check on their problem solving skills. For this reason, I stress the idea that I am more concerned about seeing their process clearly written out than seeing the correct answer. The only instructions that were given to the students during these warm-ups were that they needed to write the full question, show all of their steps, and circle their final answer. During the force unit, each of these warmup exercises concentrated on finding net force, drawing free-body diagrams, and calculating the acceleration of an object that is affected by several different forces. Why not add a line at the bottom (as a footer maybe) containing the required steps? - fogleman
4. (and 8) Create a formal assessment. Describe this assessment, including concepts, types of items, and how it was assessed. Include a link to a copy of the assessment here as well.
The formal assessment that I will be analyzing for this assignment is a quiz that I created for my Physics 1 Honors class. This quiz is on Newton's Laws and forces. In order to be successful on the assessment the students needed to have a conceptual understanding of Newton's laws and forces and they also needed to be able to apply these concepts to specific real world applications. The first 4 questions are multiple choice questions that are related to the students conceptual understanding of the material. The next 5 questions are short answer questions that also assess the concepts that were taught hroughout the unit. The final 3 questions are problems that the students must solve using the major formulas and ideas that were discussed in class. This formal assessment was administered to the students during class and the students had to complete the assessment individually in approximately 60 minutes.
A copy of the quiz can be seen at the following link
For the multiple choice questions I was looking for a specific answer or several answers (for the circle all that apply questions). While grading the short answer questions, if complete and accurate, the student would get full credit. For each aspect of the question that was lacking accuracy I would take off a half of a point. If a problem was completely wrong I would still give the student a half of a point out of 2 as long as they answered the question. The specific answers that I was looking for can be seen in the key below. The final section of the quiz involved the word problems. If the student included an appropriate diagram I awarded a point. If they identified the correct equation I would award another point, and if the process was correct I would award another. Each problem was out of 5 points so a student could receive 3/5 points without getting it correct. The students needed to show their process for each problem. If they made a computational mistake but had all of the work correct I would only take off a half of a point. Following these guidelines I was able to grade all of the quizzes using the same criteria which kept the grades consistent between the classes. I also graded only one page of every quiz at a time in order to be consistent.
The key for the quiz is shown in the next section.
5. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your formal assessment or link it here.
The key for the quiz can be seen below. Personally, I think you should be more explicit in your solutions if Ss are going to see them. This may be helpful to students who are struggling. For example, a student should be able to write their first equation(s) based on NII and their free-body diagram.
F_net = ma Horizontal: Fcos (theta) - f_friction = ma etc.
the solution should begin with a picture and tell a story that anyone can follow. - fogleman
6. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your informal assessment or link it here. This description should include the assessment's features, how it addresses different depths of knowledge, as well as an explanation of how it addresses a scientific practice related to inquiry.
When I collect the daily question (warm-up) problems, I am looking to make sure that the students are writing down the whole problem in their notes. I am also making sure that they are drawing an appropriate diagram and are identifying the variables that they are given as well as the ones that they are asked to calculate. I am also looking for their work to be neat and organized. Finally I am assessing their content knowledge and problem solving skills. I scan the work each time for misconceptions that the students may have and for large gaps in their knowledge. When I grade these assignments I only grade them for completion but I keep an eye on all of these things so that I can help the students to better understand the content and to better organize their notes.
By using this informal assessment I am assessing all 4 levels of the "depth of Knowledge" spectrum. I am assessing their recall of facts and information by seeing if they can identify the correct equations to use and the correct concepts to implement. I am assessing their skills and concepts by assessing the procedure that they decided to follow in order to complete the problem. This would include any diagrams that they drew and their identification of the variables that were given and those that needed to be solved for. I am assessing their strategic thinking by looking over their problem solving techniques. If their work is clear enough I can follow their thought process and see if they are applying strategic thinking skills. Finally, I am assessing their extended thinking skills because some of the problems that I assign them are more difficult than ones that we have done together. The problems are within their ZPD but require some original thought and require them to combine what they have learned in order to solve a problem. By looking over these warm-up questions each week I get a good sense of the intellectual progress that each student is making.
Don't delude yourself. Your problems are DOK 1 and 2 unless the problem is out of immediate context, e.g. assigning a N's II problem during a finals review when Ss have to select a strategy from many. I think these problems are mostly single step applications. They are not even solving the system of equations because you've given them the friction force explicitly. According to this page, DOK 3 problems are "non-routine," which means that there may not be a single "correct" answer. - fogleman
This informal assessment addresses several scientific practices. First it help students develop an ability to analyze a problem that is given to them. Most of the problems that I assign as warm-up exercises are real world problems that apply to some sort of physical situation. The students need to decipher the word problem and determine what is actually being asked of them. The assessment also addresses a students ability to communicate their findings. They need to explain what they did to their peers during the warm-up and also organize their work properly so that I can follow their problem solving steps.
Good point. This means that the format of their answers should communicate their reasoning to others. If this is important, you may be working at cross purposes by portraying the assignment as a "warm-up." - fogleman
7. & 8. - Already addressed above.
9. For your informal assessment, upload scans of the work of three or four students. The work of each student should be on a different page. At the bottom of each students' page, you should describe the level of student understanding, e.g. high, average, or low, and describe how this is indicated in their answers. An example of how to do this is here. Note: Remember to name the pages you create carefully, e.g. "Smith S10 - High Performing" instead of "High-Performing."
Below I have included 3 student samples from this particular informal assessment as well as the criticism that I would give to each student. Note that I grade the informal assessments on a "completion" basis but I make comments to each student so that they can improve in the future. I have included a sample that I feel is high performing, one that is average, and one that I would consider to be low performing.
The first student sample is what I would consider "average performing". The student is neat and clearly writes their name, the subject, and the date at the top of the page. The student also draws a diagram and is able to clearly show their work and thought process throughout the problem. My criticism for this student would be that they did not include the full statement of the problem. I am attempting to help these students learn better study skills and I want them to realize that in order to go back and study from their notes they need to be complete. Without a full statement of the question the student will not be able to practice the problem again in order to prepare for an assessment. I have vocalized this criticism to my students and have demonstrated the proper way to take notes. I have definitely seen some improvement over the course of the semester.
It would be useful to see your feedback. - fogleman
This second example is one that I would consider to be "high performing". This student clearly partitioned off the part of the note page that would be designated for the warm-up, they wrote the entire question in the same manner that it was presented to them, they drew an accurate diagram and they showed all mathematical steps that they took in order to arrive at the final answer. They even wrote SOHCAHTOA which helps me to see the thought process that they used when solving the problem. All variables and unknowns are also clearly identified after the statement of the problem. I want to stress to my students that using this same procedure and format, even the most complicated problems can be solved. This is an easy problem but I wanted to stress the process with them.
Since this student did not draw any vectors, how confident are you that this student can translate the problem into a free body diagram and is not just "pattern matching?" One way to address this is to require two drawings: one of the situation and one free body diagram. - fogleman
This final sample is one that I would consider to be "low performing". The student's notes are incredibly messy, the problem is not fully stated, and it is very hard to follow their work. I cannot clearly see the thought process that the student had in approaching this problem. The student also does not include any units within the work. I want this student to exhibit a better "process" when approaching physics problems. It's not about the answer; it's about the process! This student needs to work on organizing their notes and taking more detailed notes throughout class.
10. For your formal assessment, describe how you think it addressed the concepts you were trying to assess? How did you modify the assessment to address learning differences or special needs?
I feel as though the quiz that I created definitely assessed what I was trying to assess within the force unit. It not only assessed their understanding of the concepts of Newton's Laws and Net Force but it also assessed their problem solving abilities and their ability to explain concepts in their own words. I was happy with this assessment and think that it definitely assessed all of the "depths of knowledge". I was able to determine whether or not the students truly learned and were able to conceptualize the big "take-aways" of the unit. These main ideas that were critical to the unit included being able to explain and provide examples of Newton's Laws at work in the world around us, being able to calculate the net force acting on an object and use Newton's Second Law to determine the acceleration of the object, and being able to understand what net force actually means.
Overall, the responses that I received to the short answer and word problems on the assessment prove to me that my students understand the main concepts that they learned throughout the unit. The performance level of the students can be seen in the following section. I am proud of their performance on this assessment and they certainly met my expectations.
The only modifications that I made to this assessment were allowing an ESL student to take the quiz in the ESL classroom and allowing some students extra time to complete the quiz if necessary. Other than that, all students were given the same exact quiz. (Except for those who were absent because I changed the questions around).
III. Analysis / Reflection
11. Use both the informal and formal assessments to describe what you learned about what your students understand about these concepts. Use specific examples from both the informal and formal assessment to illustrate your points. What can your students do now that they could not before, and what do they still need to learn?
Both the informal assessment as well as the formal assessment that I have discussed above allow me to adequately assess exactly how well my students understand Newton's Laws and can apply them to real world applications. I not only am able to see their conceptual understanding of the physical ideas but I am also able to analyze their ability to problem solve and draw conclusions. By analyzing the informal assessment I can see that most students are able to solve the simple problem that was presented to them. They are able to identify the information that was given to them and are able to determine the proper equation that needs to be used in each circumstance. The high performing students are very organized during this process, they clearly write out the problem and write each step out very neatly. The low performing students are more chaotic with their work. They do not stick to the equation and often just write numbers down. I have worked to try to get these students to organize their thoughts
Don't be fooled by "organized" high performers. They are typically excellent pattern matchers but use their ability to AVOID understanding. How might you change your assessment to address this? - fogleman
12. OMIT
13. For your formal assessment only, select one student characteristic, e.g. ability, gender, age, etc) and compare the relative performance of each group. Hint: Use box and whiskers plots to compare the two groups. What do you conclude from this comparison? Why?
The class results that I chose to analyze are from my period 7 Physics 1 Honors class. This class has 23 students. 8 of these students are females and 15 are males. Because of the difference in numbers I chose to analyze how the male students performed compared to the female students. In order to do this I created 3 box and whisker plots that display the students scores. These plots can be seen below.
It is clear from the above plots that the male box and whisker plot is more similar to the class box and whisker plot than the female box and whisker. I would assume that this is because the males make up the majority of the class and thus their scores have a higher effect on the class statistics. Both males and females had a high grade of 100 and an average grade around the low 90s. The males had a much lower performing population than the females however. Some students scored in the 60s and all of these students were males. These results are as I would expect when I think about the actual students in the class. There is a group of males that is very high performing and one that is very low performing. These low performing students do not participate in class and do not seem to care about their success. The girls on the other hand are all typically average performing students in this particular class. These results are definitely demonstrated in the box and whisker plots.
Note to math and physics teacher: What are the disadvantages for representing box plots using different scales and axis values??? - fogleman
14. Describe any ways in which you involved students in self-assessment. How did you communicate what you learned from your informal and formal assessments to your students? What did they do with this information?
I engaged the students in self assessment by individually asking for their reaction to the quiz once they had finished. I also allowed them to redo the quiz and explain why they got each question wrong in order to earn a few points back onto their grade. On a separate sheet of paper they could revisit each problem that they answered incorrectly and think about why they got the particular problem wrong. They then needed to explain what the right answer would be and why they got it wrong. This allows them to reflect upon their own thinking and recognize any misconceptions that they might have on the topic.
I did not allow the students any time for self-assessment on the daily questions. However, I do encourage them to pay close attention to the warm-ups and if at any time they feel lost they need to either ask me questions or stay after school in order to keep up with all of the concepts and with all of the work. They can read my comments and make the necessary changes to be more successful in my class.
In order to communicate to my students what I (as the teacher) learned from their assessments, I will "go-over" the assessment with them as a class. I will discuss the common problems that arose throughout the assessment and will clear up any problems that may have existed throughout the assessment. For the informal assessment that I analyzed in this report, after grading the warm-up exercises, I explained to the students about how they can exhibit better note-taking strategies and about how they need to clearly write out the question and show each and every step that they perform on their paper. After I graded the formal assessment, I communicated to my students that they needed to work on their test-taking strategies for multiple choice questions. I noticed that many students struggled with the multiple choise problems so I went over different techniques that I use to approach these problems. In this way, my students were able to learn from their mistakes on these assessments and make the necessary adjustments in order to improve in the future.
15: Most Important: Compare your objectives for student learning (both in terms of science concepts and practices) to the student learning you observed. What did you learn about your teaching based on the student performances? What will you do differently next time? Why would you make these changes? What, if anything, will you do to improve the assessment instrument?
As a physics teacher I have several objectives for student learning within my classroom. I want my students to conceptually understand the material that is being taught and be able to apply these concepts to real world applications. I also want them to develop their critical thinking and problem solving skills in order to solve real world problems. Finally I want them to organize their thoughts and be able to express their knowledge to me.
By analyzing the assessments that I gave to the students I was able to determine their progress on each of these objectives. I realized that some students struggled with the conceptual understanding of the material. They were able to apply the concepts but when faced with a conceptual question regarding Newton's Laws, many students struggled. This made me reflect on my teaching and realize that I should spend more time discussing conceptual ideas and allow the students more time in class (through demonstrations, mini labs, and activities) to wrap their heads around these ideas. I focus my classes too much on the computational side of physics and need to be sure to allot equal (if not more time) to the theory.
I also noticed in these assessments that some students struggle with the problems. They do not have strong problem solving skills and when faced with a new problem they are not able to determine what they need to do. I need to focus my class instruction more on the process rather than the answer. They need to learn "how" to go about solving any and all problems not just the ones that we do together in class. Next time I teach this material I will stress the process that I take for each problem that I do. I might also do more examples together as a class and clearly identify each and every step that I perform. By making these adjustments I feel as though students would be more apt to do well on problems that are somewhat different from ones that they have seen before.
The formal and informal assessments that I have given definitely help me to reflect on my own teaching and see exactly what I could do differently the next time around. However, the assessments themselves are well made and I feel as though they accurately assess the students' understanding of the material. I would keep the assessments in the same format and would try to change my instruction as described above.
If you ever teach physics, you should get a copy of the Force Concept Inventory so that you have questions that you can use to assess your Ss understanding of forces. - fogleman
Name: David T. McArdle
I. Assignment Description/Requirements
II. Preparation / Development
1. Reflect on your current assessment practices. How have you been determining what students understand and what they are able to do?
Over the past 6 weeks I have slowly developed my assessment strategies and I have now settled into a routine. I assess students biweekly (approximately) with a quiz that will cover the material that they learned in class. These quizzes summarize the conceptual points that were covered in class as well as assess the problem solving skills that students should have refined in class. These quizzes would be considered formal assessments. They also give me the opportunity to reflect on my own teaching and determine what the students truly learned within the unit. In addition to this I have also informally assessed students by collecting their work on the warmup problems that I assign each day. Every day starts with warm up questions and the students use a sheet that I provide to them to write their response. We then go over the answer together as a class. Each week I collect the warmups to ensure that the students are following the instruction and to ensure that they are keeping up with the lesson. I use these informal assessments to gauge the understanding of the students and to determine if more in-class time is necessary on a particular concept. I also occasionally give students a graded homework assignment that I collect and look through. I grade them on effort but at the same time I look at the work to make sure that they understand that process. In my eyes the informal assessments are designed to ensure that the students are on the right track to be successful on the formal assessments and are participating and paying attention in class. The final assessment strategy that I implement within my classroom involves actively observing each and every student. I observe how often they participate in class, how they respond when directly asked questions, and how the interact with their peers. This allows me to determine why they may not be understanding the material and what things could be changed in order to benefit them.
Are there assignments you grade to provide formative feedback to students? -
With these assessment practices, I feel as though I am able to gauge the understanding of my students and determine how well they are progressing as intellectuals within my classroom. I can reflect on my teaching by analyzing these assessments and adjust my teaching strategies and techniques in order to better suite each of my students.
2. Describe the concept(s) that you are trying to assess in these assignments. Include a link to the appropriate GSE(s) on RIScienceTeachers. Be sure to include in your description your definition, examples of what it is, why students have difficulty with this concept, and why it is important that you teach this topic.
The assignments that I will discuss Include a quiz that I gave my Physics 1 (H) class as well as the warmup exercises that I collected from my Physics 1 (CP) students. The concepts that both of these assessments are covering revolve around forces, finding net force, discussing Newton's Laws, and using Newton's Laws. Forces are fundamental to the study of physics and allow scientists to analyze physical situations and predict the outcome.
Forces are considered to be (in the simplest form) a push or a pull on an object. Forces exist all around us in nature and we apply forces to our surroundings in our day to day lives. Students struggle understanding the origin of these forces and they are unable to correctly identify ALL forces acting on an object in a given situation. Many students forget about frictional forces and about the normal force (a force that a surface applies to an object (perpendicular to the surface) in order to counteract an objects weight). I kept these misconceptions in mind as I prepared my lessons for this particular unit.
Within the assessments that I created I am assessing my students on their conceptual understanding of the physical ideas as well as their problem solving skills and their ability to solve real-word problems related to forces.
Both assignments can be seen below and the GSE's that this assignment covers are outlined here:
PS3 (9-11) 8a: Students demonstrate an understanding of forces and motion by predicting and or graphing the path of an object in different reference planes and explain how and why (forces) it occurs. GSE1
PS3 (5-8) 8d: Students demonstrate an understanding of force by making and texting ??? predictions on how unbalanced forces acting on objects change speed or direction of motion, or both. GSE2 Middle school GSE? -
3. (and 7) Describe an informal assessment that you selected, modified, or designed to address this concept. Summarize the instructions you gave your students and Include a link to the informal assessment here as well.
Each and every class period I start off with a warmup question that is related to the topics that the students are covering. When I started this routine I instructed my students to use a blank sheet of paper that they would designate as their "warmup" sheet. They needed to write the entire question on the top of the sheet and then solve the problem using the concepts that were covered in class. I instructed them to also show ALL of their work and draw an appropriate free body diagram for the physical situation. Recently I have actually designed a grid worksheet for the students to fill in each day. This has helped to organize their thoughts and keep their notes in order. A picture of the grid can be seen below and I have also included several student samples in the sections below. The idea of these warm-up problems is to check to see if the students understand the content of the lessons and to also check on their problem solving skills. For this reason, I stress the idea that I am more concerned about seeing their process clearly written out than seeing the correct answer. The only instructions that were given to the students during these warm-ups were that they needed to write the full question, show all of their steps, and circle their final answer. During the force unit, each of these warmup exercises concentrated on finding net force, drawing free-body diagrams, and calculating the acceleration of an object that is affected by several different forces.
Why not add a line at the bottom (as a footer maybe) containing the required steps? -
4. (and 8) Create a formal assessment. Describe this assessment, including concepts, types of items, and how it was assessed. Include a link to a copy of the assessment here as well.
The formal assessment that I will be analyzing for this assignment is a quiz that I created for my Physics 1 Honors class. This quiz is on Newton's Laws and forces. In order to be successful on the assessment the students needed to have a conceptual understanding of Newton's laws and forces and they also needed to be able to apply these concepts to specific real world applications. The first 4 questions are multiple choice questions that are related to the students conceptual understanding of the material. The next 5 questions are short answer questions that also assess the concepts that were taught hroughout the unit. The final 3 questions are problems that the students must solve using the major formulas and ideas that were discussed in class. This formal assessment was administered to the students during class and the students had to complete the assessment individually in approximately 60 minutes.
A copy of the quiz can be seen at the following link
For the multiple choice questions I was looking for a specific answer or several answers (for the circle all that apply questions). While grading the short answer questions, if complete and accurate, the student would get full credit. For each aspect of the question that was lacking accuracy I would take off a half of a point. If a problem was completely wrong I would still give the student a half of a point out of 2 as long as they answered the question. The specific answers that I was looking for can be seen in the key below. The final section of the quiz involved the word problems. If the student included an appropriate diagram I awarded a point. If they identified the correct equation I would award another point, and if the process was correct I would award another. Each problem was out of 5 points so a student could receive 3/5 points without getting it correct. The students needed to show their process for each problem. If they made a computational mistake but had all of the work correct I would only take off a half of a point. Following these guidelines I was able to grade all of the quizzes using the same criteria which kept the grades consistent between the classes. I also graded only one page of every quiz at a time in order to be consistent.
The key for the quiz is shown in the next section.
5. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your formal assessment or link it here.
The key for the quiz can be seen below.
Personally, I think you should be more explicit in your solutions if Ss are going to see them. This may be helpful to students who are struggling. For example, a student should be able to write their first equation(s) based on NII and their free-body diagram.
F_net = ma
Horizontal: Fcos (theta) - f_friction = ma
etc.
the solution should begin with a picture and tell a story that anyone can follow. -
6. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your informal assessment or link it here. This description should include the assessment's features, how it addresses different depths of knowledge, as well as an explanation of how it addresses a scientific practice related to inquiry.
When I collect the daily question (warm-up) problems, I am looking to make sure that the students are writing down the whole problem in their notes. I am also making sure that they are drawing an appropriate diagram and are identifying the variables that they are given as well as the ones that they are asked to calculate. I am also looking for their work to be neat and organized. Finally I am assessing their content knowledge and problem solving skills. I scan the work each time for misconceptions that the students may have and for large gaps in their knowledge. When I grade these assignments I only grade them for completion but I keep an eye on all of these things so that I can help the students to better understand the content and to better organize their notes.
By using this informal assessment I am assessing all 4 levels of the "depth of Knowledge" spectrum. I am assessing their recall of facts and information by seeing if they can identify the correct equations to use and the correct concepts to implement. I am assessing their skills and concepts by assessing the procedure that they decided to follow in order to complete the problem. This would include any diagrams that they drew and their identification of the variables that were given and those that needed to be solved for. I am assessing their strategic thinking by looking over their problem solving techniques. If their work is clear enough I can follow their thought process and see if they are applying strategic thinking skills. Finally, I am assessing their extended thinking skills because some of the problems that I assign them are more difficult than ones that we have done together. The problems are within their ZPD but require some original thought and require them to combine what they have learned in order to solve a problem. By looking over these warm-up questions each week I get a good sense of the intellectual progress that each student is making.
Don't delude yourself. Your problems are DOK 1 and 2 unless the problem is out of immediate context, e.g. assigning a N's II problem during a finals review when Ss have to select a strategy from many. I think these problems are mostly single step applications. They are not even solving the system of equations because you've given them the friction force explicitly. According to this page, DOK 3 problems are "non-routine," which means that there may not be a single "correct" answer. -
This informal assessment addresses several scientific practices. First it help students develop an ability to analyze a problem that is given to them. Most of the problems that I assign as warm-up exercises are real world problems that apply to some sort of physical situation. The students need to decipher the word problem and determine what is actually being asked of them. The assessment also addresses a students ability to communicate their findings. They need to explain what they did to their peers during the warm-up and also organize their work properly so that I can follow their problem solving steps.
Good point. This means that the format of their answers should communicate their reasoning to others. If this is important, you may be working at cross purposes by portraying the assignment as a "warm-up." -
7. & 8. - Already addressed above.
9. For your informal assessment, upload scans of the work of three or four students. The work of each student should be on a different page. At the bottom of each students' page, you should describe the level of student understanding, e.g. high, average, or low, and describe how this is indicated in their answers. An example of how to do this is here. Note: Remember to name the pages you create carefully, e.g. "Smith S10 - High Performing" instead of "High-Performing."
Below I have included 3 student samples from this particular informal assessment as well as the criticism that I would give to each student. Note that I grade the informal assessments on a "completion" basis but I make comments to each student so that they can improve in the future. I have included a sample that I feel is high performing, one that is average, and one that I would consider to be low performing.
Excellent strategy!-
The first student sample is what I would consider "average performing". The student is neat and clearly writes their name, the subject, and the date at the top of the page. The student also draws a diagram and is able to clearly show their work and thought process throughout the problem. My criticism for this student would be that they did not include the full statement of the problem. I am attempting to help these students learn better study skills and I want them to realize that in order to go back and study from their notes they need to be complete. Without a full statement of the question the student will not be able to practice the problem again in order to prepare for an assessment. I have vocalized this criticism to my students and have demonstrated the proper way to take notes. I have definitely seen some improvement over the course of the semester.
It would be useful to see your feedback. -
This second example is one that I would consider to be "high performing". This student clearly partitioned off the part of the note page that would be designated for the warm-up, they wrote the entire question in the same manner that it was presented to them, they drew an accurate diagram and they showed all mathematical steps that they took in order to arrive at the final answer. They even wrote SOHCAHTOA which helps me to see the thought process that they used when solving the problem. All variables and unknowns are also clearly identified after the statement of the problem. I want to stress to my students that using this same procedure and format, even the most complicated problems can be solved. This is an easy problem but I wanted to stress the process with them.
Since this student did not draw any vectors, how confident are you that this student can translate the problem into a free body diagram and is not just "pattern matching?" One way to address this is to require two drawings: one of the situation and one free body diagram. -
This final sample is one that I would consider to be "low performing". The student's notes are incredibly messy, the problem is not fully stated, and it is very hard to follow their work. I cannot clearly see the thought process that the student had in approaching this problem. The student also does not include any units within the work. I want this student to exhibit a better "process" when approaching physics problems. It's not about the answer; it's about the process! This student needs to work on organizing their notes and taking more detailed notes throughout class.
10. For your formal assessment, describe how you think it addressed the concepts you were trying to assess? How did you modify the assessment to address learning differences or special needs?
I feel as though the quiz that I created definitely assessed what I was trying to assess within the force unit. It not only assessed their understanding of the concepts of Newton's Laws and Net Force but it also assessed their problem solving abilities and their ability to explain concepts in their own words. I was happy with this assessment and think that it definitely assessed all of the "depths of knowledge". I was able to determine whether or not the students truly learned and were able to conceptualize the big "take-aways" of the unit. These main ideas that were critical to the unit included being able to explain and provide examples of Newton's Laws at work in the world around us, being able to calculate the net force acting on an object and use Newton's Second Law to determine the acceleration of the object, and being able to understand what net force actually means.
Overall, the responses that I received to the short answer and word problems on the assessment prove to me that my students understand the main concepts that they learned throughout the unit. The performance level of the students can be seen in the following section. I am proud of their performance on this assessment and they certainly met my expectations.
The only modifications that I made to this assessment were allowing an ESL student to take the quiz in the ESL classroom and allowing some students extra time to complete the quiz if necessary. Other than that, all students were given the same exact quiz. (Except for those who were absent because I changed the questions around).
III. Analysis / Reflection
11. Use both the informal and formal assessments to describe what you learned about what your students understand about these concepts. Use specific examples from both the informal and formal assessment to illustrate your points. What can your students do now that they could not before, and what do they still need to learn?
Both the informal assessment as well as the formal assessment that I have discussed above allow me to adequately assess exactly how well my students understand Newton's Laws and can apply them to real world applications. I not only am able to see their conceptual understanding of the physical ideas but I am also able to analyze their ability to problem solve and draw conclusions. By analyzing the informal assessment I can see that most students are able to solve the simple problem that was presented to them. They are able to identify the information that was given to them and are able to determine the proper equation that needs to be used in each circumstance. The high performing students are very organized during this process, they clearly write out the problem and write each step out very neatly. The low performing students are more chaotic with their work. They do not stick to the equation and often just write numbers down. I have worked to try to get these students to organize their thoughts
Don't be fooled by "organized" high performers. They are typically excellent pattern matchers but use their ability to AVOID understanding. How might you change your assessment to address this? -
12. OMIT
13. For your formal assessment only, select one student characteristic, e.g. ability, gender, age, etc) and compare the relative performance of each group. Hint: Use box and whiskers plots to compare the two groups. What do you conclude from this comparison? Why?
The class results that I chose to analyze are from my period 7 Physics 1 Honors class. This class has 23 students. 8 of these students are females and 15 are males. Because of the difference in numbers I chose to analyze how the male students performed compared to the female students. In order to do this I created 3 box and whisker plots that display the students scores. These plots can be seen below.
It is clear from the above plots that the male box and whisker plot is more similar to the class box and whisker plot than the female box and whisker. I would assume that this is because the males make up the majority of the class and thus their scores have a higher effect on the class statistics. Both males and females had a high grade of 100 and an average grade around the low 90s. The males had a much lower performing population than the females however. Some students scored in the 60s and all of these students were males. These results are as I would expect when I think about the actual students in the class. There is a group of males that is very high performing and one that is very low performing. These low performing students do not participate in class and do not seem to care about their success. The girls on the other hand are all typically average performing students in this particular class. These results are definitely demonstrated in the box and whisker plots.
Note to math and physics teacher: What are the disadvantages for representing box plots using different scales and axis values??? -
14. Describe any ways in which you involved students in self-assessment. How did you communicate what you learned from your informal and formal assessments to your students? What did they do with this information?
I engaged the students in self assessment by individually asking for their reaction to the quiz once they had finished. I also allowed them to redo the quiz and explain why they got each question wrong in order to earn a few points back onto their grade. On a separate sheet of paper they could revisit each problem that they answered incorrectly and think about why they got the particular problem wrong. They then needed to explain what the right answer would be and why they got it wrong. This allows them to reflect upon their own thinking and recognize any misconceptions that they might have on the topic.
Good-
I did not allow the students any time for self-assessment on the daily questions. However, I do encourage them to pay close attention to the warm-ups and if at any time they feel lost they need to either ask me questions or stay after school in order to keep up with all of the concepts and with all of the work. They can read my comments and make the necessary changes to be more successful in my class.
In order to communicate to my students what I (as the teacher) learned from their assessments, I will "go-over" the assessment with them as a class. I will discuss the common problems that arose throughout the assessment and will clear up any problems that may have existed throughout the assessment. For the informal assessment that I analyzed in this report, after grading the warm-up exercises, I explained to the students about how they can exhibit better note-taking strategies and about how they need to clearly write out the question and show each and every step that they perform on their paper. After I graded the formal assessment, I communicated to my students that they needed to work on their test-taking strategies for multiple choice questions. I noticed that many students struggled with the multiple choise problems so I went over different techniques that I use to approach these problems. In this way, my students were able to learn from their mistakes on these assessments and make the necessary adjustments in order to improve in the future.
15: Most Important: Compare your objectives for student learning (both in terms of science concepts and practices) to the student learning you observed. What did you learn about your teaching based on the student performances? What will you do differently next time? Why would you make these changes? What, if anything, will you do to improve the assessment instrument?
As a physics teacher I have several objectives for student learning within my classroom. I want my students to conceptually understand the material that is being taught and be able to apply these concepts to real world applications. I also want them to develop their critical thinking and problem solving skills in order to solve real world problems. Finally I want them to organize their thoughts and be able to express their knowledge to me.
By analyzing the assessments that I gave to the students I was able to determine their progress on each of these objectives. I realized that some students struggled with the conceptual understanding of the material. They were able to apply the concepts but when faced with a conceptual question regarding Newton's Laws, many students struggled. This made me reflect on my teaching and realize that I should spend more time discussing conceptual ideas and allow the students more time in class (through demonstrations, mini labs, and activities) to wrap their heads around these ideas. I focus my classes too much on the computational side of physics and need to be sure to allot equal (if not more time) to the theory.
I also noticed in these assessments that some students struggle with the problems. They do not have strong problem solving skills and when faced with a new problem they are not able to determine what they need to do. I need to focus my class instruction more on the process rather than the answer. They need to learn "how" to go about solving any and all problems not just the ones that we do together in class. Next time I teach this material I will stress the process that I take for each problem that I do. I might also do more examples together as a class and clearly identify each and every step that I perform. By making these adjustments I feel as though students would be more apt to do well on problems that are somewhat different from ones that they have seen before.
The formal and informal assessments that I have given definitely help me to reflect on my own teaching and see exactly what I could do differently the next time around. However, the assessments themselves are well made and I feel as though they accurately assess the students' understanding of the material. I would keep the assessments in the same format and would try to change my instruction as described above.
If you ever teach physics, you should get a copy of the Force Concept Inventory so that you have questions that you can use to assess your Ss understanding of forces. -
I22/24. -
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